Guest Essayist: James D. Best

 

The election of 1860 would polarize the nation and challenge the durability of the Constitution. In 1787, the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia established a new government for the United States of America. For over seventy years, the country had fought fierce political battles over slavery and federalism. Compromises, pacts, and informal precedents managed to hold the country together. This still-young nation would soon become engulfed in a savage civil war that would eventually complete the work begun in 1787.

As 1860 dawned, old quarrels over slavery put extraordinary pressure on the increasingly shaky union. The Supreme Court’s Dred Scott decision and the Kansas-Nebraska Act destroyed the Missouri Compromise. The Whig Party had collapsed. Democrats had split into two warring factions. The new Republican Party tried to gather the disillusioned from both parties. Eight Presidents in a row had served only a single term—none with note.

Senator Stephen Douglas had championed the Kansas-Nebraska Act to curry favor with the South, but then had straddled the issue to win re-election in Illinois. Douglas’ presumed wavering in support of slavery lost him support in the South and split the Democrat Party. Democrats deadlocked at their Charleston convention, but Lincoln convinced Republicans that Douglas, who was from Illinois, would be their eventual opponent. He further argued that this made Illinois crucial to a Republican win against a divided Democrat Party.

Lincoln had a four step plan to secure the nomination. Step one was to pretend he was disinterested in the nomination while building a stronger national reputation. Step two was to convince his party that the convention needed to be held in Chicago in order to defuse Douglas’s advantage in the state. Step three was to maneuver to be everyone’s second choice. Step four would take advantage of the convention being held in Lincoln’s home state. (For example, he packed the hall with his partisans.)

The chief contenders for the presidential nomination were Seward, Lincoln, Chase, Cameron, and Bates. Seward and Chase did not have the support of the moderates. Bates had offended foreign-born Americans. Cameron was embroiled in political scandals. On the first ballot, Seward led with 173-1/2 votes. Lincoln had 102, Cameron had 50-1/2, Chase had 49, and Bates had 35. On the second ballot, Cameron withdrew, and most of the Pennsylvania delegation switched to Lincoln. Seward now had 184-1/2 votes, Lincoln 181, Chase 42-1/2, and Bates 35. On the third ballot, four Ohio delegates switched their votes to Lincoln. This started a stampede and when his nomination was secure, the convention voted to make Lincoln their unanimous choice for president.

On November 7, 1860, 4.7 million white males went to polls. This represented 80% of eligible voters. Lincoln did not win a majority of the popular vote, but he handily won the electoral vote.

Victory must have felt hollow. Southern militants had threatened to secede from the Union if Lincoln was elected. In December, South Carolina seceded. By February, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas had followed. President Buchanan did nothing to stop the secessionist movement, and President-elect Lincoln remained silent on the issue, possibly believing that pro-Union sentiment would reassert itself. It did not.

Did states have a right to secede? The South believed they did. They viewed the Constitution as a voluntary confederation, stronger than the Articles of Confederation, but a confederation nonetheless—one that allowed states to join or secede. The South also cited the Declaration of Independence to justify their actions, which stated that, “when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government.”

Lincoln had a different perspective. He believed the concept of a confederacy went by the wayside when a full-blown nation came to fruition with ratification of the Constitution. Holding that nation together was his sworn duty. He believed people had a natural right to choose their leaders and those who supported someone else must accede to election results. Letting unhappy states leave would be a horrific precedent and destroy the country. Further, the Constitution was the “supreme law of the land,’ so the states could not be supreme.

From a legal and political perspective, reliance on the Declaration of Independence provided a more solid footing than the Constitution, but the words in the Declaration of Independence did not secure liberation from Great Britain. Independence required seven years of bloody fighting.

Civil wars are brutal. The American civil war was no exception. It tested the strength of government under the Constitution. It also tested men. In the end, President Lincoln kept a nation together while preserving an intact—albeit bruised—Constitution. (Amendments to this same great document provided the mechanism to outlaw slavery.) Neither Seward, Chase, Cameron, nor Bates could have accomplished this Herculean mission.

Lincoln revered the Founding Fathers and earned the right to stand beside them.

James D. Best, author of Tempest at Dawn, a novel about the 1787 Constitutional Convention, Principled Action, and the Steve Dancy Tales.

1 reply
  1. Ralph T. Howarth, Jr.
    Ralph T. Howarth, Jr. says:

    I never hear about Article V on the secession issue. If Lincoln’s premise is that the confederacy is made permanent by the new constitution, then what of Article V’s “deal breaker” clauses? If the “deal breaker” clauses are violated such as banning the slave trade before 1808 or removing state government equal suffrage from the senate, did not the ratifiers deem the union then automatically split? Is not dissolution then a form of secession? Further, what then made the previous constitution “temporary” or “voluntary” rather than the new constitution when the old constitution even opened with the phrase “perpetual union” when the new constitution does not? And if I recall right, Thomas Jefferson’s correspondence concerning making Missouri a state answered that if Missouri organized a state from a U.S. territory, and does not attest to joining the union, then Missouri would become an independent republic. If a territory becomes a state and leaves the union, is that not a form of defacto-secession? And even in these present times, the Phillipines were incorporated as a territory, as was Cuba. And Filipino born persons were for a season deemed U.S. citizens not in need of naturalization. But the Philippines is now an independent state. No one seems to be talking about any Filipino secession, even though it was a U.S. territory, technically not an attested state joining the union, if so “permanently”. Are U.S. territories then not part of the union? as Lincoln galvanizes? And what if an Article V Convention of States gains so much momentum that a battery of new amendments is rendered for the states to ratify without Congress calling it? If Congress does not call it, then an Article V Convention ceases to be an Article V Convention & becomes a Constitutional Convention. And being a Constitutional Convention, sets up a new constitution with a new ratification call for a new nation. Does a majority of states then make an act of secession legal but a few not?

    Reply

Join the discussion! Post your comments below.

Your feedback and insights are welcome.
Feel free to contribute!

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *